


Bear Necessities

by Why_so_drama



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Curses, Established Relationship, M/M, Magical Realism, Off-Season, overuse of the word 'bear'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-21 00:47:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14905317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Why_so_drama/pseuds/Why_so_drama
Summary: Every morning, Sid drinks his coffee outside on the deck before going on his run. Every morning there's a bear in his yard and it keeps getting closer and closer.Or:Five Times Sid sees a bear and One Time Geno believes him.





	Bear Necessities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iamnotmagic_cath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamnotmagic_cath/gifts).



> The title is from the song in Disney's _The Jungle Book_.
> 
> This was written for the 2018 Sid/Geno Exchange. It didn't turn out how I expected it to at all, but we like it anyway. It was a pleasure to be part of this exchange and we hope to participate again in the future. Hope you enjoy!

There’s a bear in Sid’s yard when he steps out onto his deck. The mist is rising off the water and out onto the grass, obscuring the animal’s outline, but it’s still very obviously a bear. He’s seen a couple (or maybe just the same one) in the few weeks that he’s been back at the lake house, and he’s seen them in Pittsburgh as well. Bears have always been a good omen for him, though, since it seems like good things happen after a sighting.

The last time he’d seen a bear in Mario’s yard, they’d won the Stanley Cup the day following.

The time after that, he’d finally gotten courageous enough to admit his feelings to Geno. Geno had interrupted him with a kiss and they’ve been together ever since.

He takes a sip of his coffee and watches as the bear ambles around. It’s not close enough to pose a threat and the deck isn’t accessible from the ground anyway, so Sid leans against the railing and squints to try and get a better look. The bear seems unconcerned, bounding into the lake and splashing joyfully instead of wading around or staying still enough to catch some fish. Sid feels a smile spread across his face. The bear looks like it’s having fun.

He thinks about waking Geno. His boyfriend would love seeing this, but hates mornings and thinks that summers are for sleeping in and lazy morning sex. Instead of going inside, Sid just watches as the bear plays around in the waves until he’s finished his coffee. He can tell Geno about it later, and wake him up next time if he wants to see it.

He goes for a run after that, studiously avoiding the bear, and  gets home just in time to see Geno coming out of the shower. He’s got a towel slung around his hips --thicker now that it’s the off-season-- and he’s rubbing another towel over his hair.

“You missed seeing a bear this morning,” Sid tells him before pouring himself a glass of water and draining it.

“Bear?” Geno asks, pausing for a moment. “When you see bear?”

“I was out on the deck for a coffee,” Sid replies, “it was by the lake.”

“Think you go on run,” Geno says dismissively, like he doesn't actually believe it.

“I did, but I saw the bear before that,” Sid tells him. “I’ll wake you up next time, if you want.”

“Was no bear,” Geno teases. “No bear in Nova Scotia.”

Sid just shakes his head. He knows what he’d seen (and he knows that there are, in fact, bears in Nova Scotia), but if Geno doesn’t want to believe him, he’ll just have to show him next time. Geno seems completely unconcerned that there was a bear so close by and he hadn’t gotten to see it, but Sid is too distracted by Geno in only a towel to keep arguing. It’s not like he’d thought to take a picture.

“You got any plans?” Sid asks, looking at Geno up and down obviously. He moves forward and settles his hands on Geno's hips, just in case his intentions aren't clear enough.

"Think maybe I go swim, go fish, see dryer Sidney Crosby use to practice. Going to leave you in house all alone," Geno tells him, smirking. "Why? You have better plan?"

Sid just makes a face at him, amused, and urges him toward the bedroom. Geno is right about one thing: summers are definitely made for lazy morning sex, and Sid is more than willing to indulge. Geno chuckles ahead of him, wholeheartedly in agreement with the morning’s trajectory. Sid had known he would be.

“Have too take me to see dryer after, Sid,” Geno insists as he tugs the towel loose.

“Fine, we can go later. Maybe we’ll see the bear.”

After that, there’s no more talk of bears or dryers for the next little while.

***

The bear is back the next morning. It’s a little closer this time, lying in a patch of grass and flowers, watching the sun rise over the water. It’s close enough that Sid can see the early morning light reflecting off the little bees buzzing around as the bear stretches its legs out. It’s kind of adorable to watch such a huge animal arch its neck over so that it can seemingly smell the flowers, and Sid can’t seem to tear his eyes away. He doesn’t even think about going to wake Geno, or getting his phone. He’s afraid that the bear won’t be there when he comes back, and this is just too cute to miss.

He finishes his coffee just after the sun takes its place in the sky, but sticks around for another ten minutes before heading out for his run. He doesn’t see the bear at all while he’s out, even though it had looked pretty comfortable. If Sid had nothing to do all day, he’d want to lie around in a patch of sun too. In fact, he and Geno had done just that the day before, after their rather rigorous morning activities.They hadn’t even put away their lawn chairs afterwards, just left them out like they were planning to use them again, soon.

When he gets home, there’s still grass in Geno’s hair from when they had made out on the lawn the night before. Sid playfully guides him toward the shower and then joins him before they head out to the rink for some ice time.

Afterwards, they lie out in the sun together on their lawn chairs and Sid forgets to tell Geno about seeing the bear that morning.

***

Sid is running late the next morning, so he chugs his coffee over the sink. When he looks outside, he sees the bear again, chasing a flock of seagulls across the beach. It must live nearby or something, because he’s seen it so often this week.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it, however, since he needs to pick Taylor up from the airport. Setting his mug down in the sink, he takes one last look at the bear and smiles as he slides into his flip flops.

"Love you, G! See you in a bit," he calls on his way out.

There's no response, but he hadn't expected one. Geno was dead to the world when Sid got up, and it's unlikely that he's woken up since then. If left his own devices, Geno would lie around all day, and convince Sid to stay there with him (Sid usually finds it hard to refuse).

He gets into the car and heads toward the highway, thinking about the bear and what seeing it might mean the whole way to Halifax.

***

Taylor is outside with him the next morning. They’re both sipping coffee when the bear comes ambling out of the bushes. Sid raises his eyebrows and looks over at his sister, as if to say, _see, I told you_. Taylor’s eyes are wide with surprise and disbelief.

The two of them watch in silence, not wanting to do anything to disturb it, or worse, bring its attention to them. Sid almost giggles when it flops down, might even let a bit of sound escape him because the bear stops abruptly and turns to look over at him. Sid stops short, breath caught in his throat. There isn’t a way for it to get to them- the deck is only accessible through the house- but that doesn’t mean that a four hundred pound bear can’t do any damage if it wanted to. Sid half expects it to start running toward them.

It must be pretty well fed or something, because it just gets up on two feet and looks at them for a bit before flopping back down onto its ass. It keeps looking at them, though, which is a little bit unnerving. Slowly, Sid raises the hand that’s not holding his coffee and gives the bear a little wave.

To his absolute astonishment, the bear waves back.

“Holy shit,” Taylor blurts out, then does the same thing. The bear waves at her as well. Soon, the three of them are all waving at each other, and Taylor and Sid are both trying to stifle giggles.

Eventually, the bear seems to get bored of them and runs off into the surrounding foliage. As soon as its gone, Sid turns to Taylor and says, “I have to tell Geno about this. He’ll never believe it.”  

“He’s gonna think we’re both pulling his leg,” Taylor replies, laughing.

“Yeah, he will,” Sid agrees as they head inside.

Geno doesn’t believe them at all, still convinced that there are no bears in Nova Scotia. He waves Sid off and tells him that he’s trying to trick him. He keeps saying that even when Taylor insists that Sid’s telling the truth. It’s frustrating, but Geno won’t be swayed. Sid decides to let it go and vows to get photographic proof next time, because he’s sure there will be a next time. The bear seems to like their yard, if the last four mornings are any indication, so Sid isn’t worried about not seeing it again.

He lets it go, because otherwise they’re just going to argue all day, and he doesn’t want that. It’s not often that he gets to spend time with both his boyfriend and his sister at the same time.

***

Although he doesn’t see it the next morning before his run, Sid is still convinced that the bear is going to come back. He even stays out on the deck longer than usual just to see. Out of spite, he opens the door to their bedroom and glares at Geno’s sleeping form, like it’s Geno’s disbelief that stopped the bear from showing up, like the bear is like the fairies from Peter Pan and Geno needs to believe in the bear so it will come back.

He gives up on glaring pretty quickly because Geno isn’t waking up---to be fair, Sid had tired him out pretty thoroughly the night before---and heads out the front door so that he can actually accomplish something this morning.

During his run, he looks for the bear. It has to live nearby, somewhere, since it’s been around so often lately. It’s not that Sid wants to see it face to face, but he’s a little bit worried that it hadn’t shown up that morning. He knows it’s weird to be worried about a bear, especially one that his boyfriend denies the existence of. It’s not like he can convince the bear to follow him home so that he can show Geno once and for all. It’s not like he’d actually want to do that, anyway.

That doesn’t stop him from feeling disappointed when he arrives back home, sweaty and sore from a good long workout. He’s in the kitchen, making his shake, when he looks out onto the deck, thinking maybe that the bear had just slept in or something.

The bear is there, standing on two feet, on the deck, leaning over to look out across the yard toward the lake. There are no stairs to the deck, though, so it’s not possible for the bear to have gotten up onto it.

Sid’s eyes go wide and he quickly pulls the curtains shut. Maybe he _is_ imagining it. Geno could be right about it not existing. In that moment, Sid really hopes that he’s right and that there is no bear on his deck. There can’t be any other explanation for it to be there. Maybe he’d gotten hit in the head without knowing, or something. Maybe wrestling with Taylor the other day had brought back his concussion symptoms. Although he would admittedly much rather deal with a bear than go through those again, he can’t help but start to think that maybe he is imagining things after all. He doesn’t have an explanation for this, he just needs to not look outside and hope that the bear somehow disappears.

In the meantime, no way is Sid staying in the kitchen. It’s too close to the door and that bear weighs about a million pounds. He sneaks out, slowly and carefully, making no sudden moves. The bear hadn’t been looking inside when Sid had seen it, but there’s nothing stopping that fact from changing at any moment. He goes to the bedroom to wake Geno but the bed is empty. It’s strange, because the shower isn’t on either. Geno never wakes up before Sid comes home from his run, so this is almost more alarming than having a bear on the deck.

He doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t want Geno to get eaten by the deck bear, but he doesn’t know where Geno is. He feels like he doesn’t have a choice, so he heads for the front door. As he does so, he hears Geno calling out his name.

“Geno,” he whispers harshly. “Geno, shut up!”

“Sid? Where?” Geno repeats, not being quiet at all. In fact, he’s actually stomping his way through the kitchen. Sid is going to have a heart attack, he’s sure of it.

“In the bedroom,” Sid hisses. “Be quiet.”

“Why quiet?” Geno asks as he comes into the room, completely naked. “No one here but us.”

Sid closes the door quickly as Geno comes in and then stands with his back against it. “There’s a bear on the deck.”

“What? Is no bear. I’m just out on deck, no bear.”

“There was a bear! I saw it,” Sid protests. “I’ve been seeing a bear all week and it’s been closer to the house every time. I swear! It waved at me and Taylor. We told you this.”

“Sid, you have too much stress. Come, we go to bed and I fix,” Geno says, settling his big hands on Sid’s shoulders. “You sad because there’s no hockey, but I’m right here. Will make you happy with dick. Stop worry about bear, okay? Is no bear.”

While it’s true that Geno’s dick does make Sid pretty happy, he can’t really forget about the bear. Geno tries to tug him back toward the bed but Sid shakes his head. “I can’t. We need to get the bear off the deck, okay?”

“Is no bear, I show you,” Geno tells him. He throws open the door to the bedroom and struts out, toward the sliding door to the back. Sid follows him, filled with anxiety and fear. His heart nearly stops when he sees that the sliding door is open. He must have missed that part in his haste to get away.

Geno open the curtains and Sid jumps back, ready to run, only to see that there really isn’t a bear on their deck. There’s no bear, but the door hadn’t been closed. That must mean that there’s a bear in the _house_.

“It’s inside,” Sid gasps, eyes wide “Geno, the fucking bear is in the house!”

“Sid, is no-“

“It’s in the fucking house! Don’t you dare tell me that it’s not!” Sid explodes.

He insists that they go through the house, room by room, to make sure that the bear didn’t somehow squeeze itself into their house and hide somewhere. Geno follows him the whole time, thankfully keeping quiet about the situation. Sid appreciates it, even though he feels more and more silly with every empty room that they discover. He thinks that he should be happy that they don’t find a bear at all, but instead, he just feels stupid.

They explore the whole house together only to find that there really is no bear in the house. Only then does he allow Geno, who is still naked, drag him back to the bedroom.

“It’s off-season,” Geno insists as he drags Sid’s shorts down, over his legs. “Mean I get to fuck you when I want.” Geno starts to kiss over his shoulders, and Sid finally finds himself relaxing. He’s always been so easy for Geno, and that’s not about to change.

“Yeah,” Sid agrees, grinning despite the niggling worry that he still has about the bear, “it does. Now show me what you’ve got, babe.”

***

After that, Sid decides to just forget about the bear. He doesn’t go outside to drink his morning coffee anymore, just relaxes in the den instead. The view isn’t nearly as nice, but he figures it's better than getting worked up over a bear. He still goes running, but then, he’d never seen it on his runs anyway, so he figures that it’s fine.

A week passes, and then another, and soon he and Geno are packing up and getting ready to spend the few weeks remaining until pre-season with Geno’s family in Russia. It’s the last day before they’re set to fly out, and Sid is just coming back from his morning run. He’s feeling a little melancholy about the whole thing since he won’t be back until the offseason again, and he’ll miss the Maritimes just as badly as he always does. On the other hand, he’s also looking forward to Russia with Geno and the season that will be starting soon.

He’s about halfway through making his protein shake when he feels something come up behind him. At first, he assumes it’s Geno, but then he thinks that whatever it is is too big to be Geno. So then he thinks that maybe it’s Nate coming to visit.

It’s not Nate.

When Sid turns around, he’s so shocked that he drops his full glass onto the floor, causing it to shatter and spray glass and protein shake all over the floor. The sound startles both Sid and the bear, the bear that is _in his kitchen_ ;, the bear that had come up behind him, that is somehow now staring at him.

Sid screams.

The bear looks directly at him and then suddenly, it’s not a bear at all. Where the bear had been mere milliseconds ago now stands Geno, naked and sleep rumpled, looking disturbed and confused at the same time.

“Why so loud, Sid? Is morning,” he complains.

That shakes Sid out of his shock. “Geno. You were a bear. What the fuck!?” he explodes.

“Why you always talk about bear? Is no bear,” he repeats, tiredly, for the hundredth time since Sid had first seen the bear frolicking in the flowers in his yard.

“Geno, fucking listen to me,” Sid insists. “You were a fucking bear, okay? You were standing here in the kitchen when I turned around and when I screamed, you turned back into you. Can you tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Geno sighs and looks shifty for a second, and finally Sid knows that he’s got him. “Did not think curse is real,” he says in a small voice. “Think was a joke. Just a story that babushka tell me when I’m kid. Didn’t- Sid-”

Sid takes a breath and forces himself to calm down a little bit. Geno looks even more freaked out than Sid feels, and that’s saying something. Sid’s been captain for a while now, so he knows how to handle emotional situations, and he knows how to separate himself from them. He takes a breath, sets his hand Geno’s shoulder and says, “okay. Okay. So what we’re gonna do is clean this up, you’re gonna get dressed, and we’re gonna talk about this- this curse. How does that sound?”

He watches as Geno nods reluctantly, and then gets to work on the clean up. Ten minutes later, he and Geno are sitting across from each other, with Geno looking very uncomfortable.

“So tell me about this ‘curse’,” Sid says, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that his boyfriend is also a bear- and not in the way that people might think.

“Sid-” Geno starts, but Sid shakes his head and Geno sighs as he fidgets uncomfortably. “Russia is different country, and I’m say is best all the time, but sometimes is not best. Sometimes Russia not very nice.”

Sid just looks at him with a raised eyebrow. Geno isn’t being very forthcoming about whatever this curse is and Sid is losing his patience. Geno just transformed in front of him. He was a bear, and now he’s not a bear, and Sid wants to know why. He thinks he deserves to know why and he’s tired of waiting.

“Is hard explain,” Geno insists. “And you maybe won’t believe.”

“G, you were just a bear. I saw it with my own eyes, okay? Whatever you say, I’m gonna have to believe.”

Sid watches as Geno sighs and then takes in a breath. “Long time ago, my family is curse by old babushka, or like, Baba Yaga? Is because _grandfather_ do something wrong, I’m not know what is, but did something to old witch and she curse him, become bear. I’m never believe in curse, always think is stupid, not true, but now you tell me I'm bear, and that you see bear all over property-”

“And _you_ told me that there was no bear,” Sid responds, annoyed that Geno has been lying to him.

“Sid, _Sid_ , I’m not know! I’m not know I’m bear. I’m not remember any things you tell me. Is like I have concussion, like I lose time-”

“You don’t remember any of it? You don’t remember being in Mario’s yard right before we won the cup on 2009? You don’t remember being close to me the night before we got together? You don’t remember all the mornings last week? I thought you were still in bed! I didn’t know it was _you_ running around out there.”

“I’m not know either, Sid! I’m not lie! I’m not know I have curse! Not remember anything about be bear.” Geno looks stressed about this discovery and Sid feels for him, he does, but this is all so hard to believe.

“So you don’t know anything about transforming.”

“No,” Geno insists stubbornly.

“And you don’t remember anything about where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing?”

“No.”

“G, I don’t know what to do about this,” Sid replies after a few moments of contemplation. “But you’re really a bear? Or like, you can turn into one?” he asks.

“Looks like,” Geno grumbles, obviously still pretty upset about the discovery. Sid isn’t sure how to be okay with this just yet, but Geno is his boyfriend. He’s the man that Sid loves, the man that he’s going to marry once hockey is over. Hell, he’s the man that Sid is more than willing to marry right now, bear or no bear. Sid slides over so that he’s next to Geno and their thighs are touching. When Geno looks up at him, he catches his pouty lips in a soft kiss.

“I love you,” Sid tells him gently. “I really love you.”

“I’m love too,” Geno tells him earnestly. “Bear is not my fault, promise.”

“G, I’m not going to leave you because you’re a bear sometimes,” Sid assures him as he turns to face Geno fully. “You’re already half-bear on the ice.” He feels Geno relax against him, like that had been a fear of his. “Babe, I’m not going anywhere.”

“But what if I scare again? What if I turn into bear during game, get kick out of league. You still love me then?”

“You’re not going to turn into a bear or get kicked out of the league,” Sid says. “Because we’re going to Russia soon, and we’re going to figure out how to break this curse, or whatever it is.”

“But, to break curse we have to visit Baba Yaga, give her some sort trade. This why Papa never do before.”

“We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

Geno doesn’t look like he believes him, so Sid kisses him once again, stubborn in his own right. They’re both used to overcoming the odds and doing great things now, and this will just be another time they have to work together to accomplish a common goal. “Fine, if you say we do, then we do.”

“We’ll do it,” Sid repeats. “We can do it together.”

“Together,” Geno agrees and then pulls Sid in, cuddling him closely. Sid sinks into his side and sighs happily. Whatever they have to do, they can do it, as long as they’re together.

***

Sid wakes up the next morning, and there’s a bear in his bed.

He turns toward his warm, furry bulk and slides and arm over him. The bear huffs in his sleep, sounding happy and comfortable. “Love you, G,” Sid whispers against his fur.

He’s seen a bear quite a bit in the past few days, but he thinks that this is his favourite place to have found one. They have a little while before they need to be getting to the airport, and Sid plans to spend the entirety of it pressed up against Geno’s back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Sai, my fandom bestie, who helps so much with everything that goes into writing and posting fic, including but not limited to: bouncing ideas back and forth, dealing with my agony over words not coming, helping come up with plot points and beta reading. I never would have gotten this done without you! <3


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